Monday, June 27, 2011

Bon mot for the week

"We are all geniuses when we dream. The butcher is the poet's equal there."


Emil Cioran  (1911-1995)


4 comments:

JES said...

Which is the problem with (say) many politicians, who have stopped (if they ever started) dreaming.

I'd never heard of Emil Cioran before. Thanks for the Wikipedia link, where we learn (among other things), William H. Gass called Cioran's work "a philosophical romance on the modern themes of alienation, absurdity, boredom, futility, decay, the tyranny of history, the vulgarities of change, awareness as agony, reason as disease." He must've been a busy guy.

Froog said...

Quite so, JES - it does make you want to delve into the man's work, doesn't it?

I haven't had a chance to do any digging yet myself. Is there anything of his on Google Books?

JES said...

This might get you started: Google Books hits on his name (showing only those books with a preview available).

Love this line, just glimpsed: My mission is to kill time, and time's to kill me in its turn. How comfortable one is among murderers.

Froog said...

I have some 'free' hours tomorrow. I think I now know how I'm going to be spending most of them. Thanks, JES.